Download A Perspective on Islam - David`s Tent | Final Frontier Ministries

a perspective on
Avner Boskey
A PERSPECTIVE ON ISLAM
© Avner Boskey 2001
Terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the WTC have shocked and
shaken America. Violent Middle Easterners hijacked civilian aircraft, yet sought no
hostage negotiations. Their purpose was to murder, to wreak destruction and terror
on America’s economy, society and democracy. Are these mujahidin (jihad
warriors) a lunatic fringe element of Islam, or do they represent one of the real
faces of that religion? How are believers to relate to Islam in light of coming
prophetic events on the earth? And how can we keep the mind and heart of Messiah
as we interface with our Muslim neighbors?
The clearly Islamic aspects of the recent terror attacks have prompted public
scrutiny and discussion of the nature of Islam. In past days Muslim advocates have
repeatedly stressed similar themes: Islam is a monotheistic major world religion;
most Muslims are peace loving and not violent; Islam doesn’t believe in jihad as holy
war, but in jihad as an ethical movement for self betterment. Are these statements
all true? Let’s carefully examine each one of these assertions.
I. IS ISLAM A MONOTHEISTIC MAJOR WORLD RELIGION?
Islam is a major world religion, with more than one billion followers, including five
million in the United States. The five largest Muslim nations are Indonesia (180
million), Pakistan (125 million), Bangladesh (109 million), India (84 million) and
Iran (66 million). Further on down the list, 12th through 15th in size are Sudan and
Afghanistan (22 million), Iraq (20 million) and Saudi Arabia (19 million).
Is Islam a monotheistic religion? That all depends on how one defines ‘monotheism’.
Monotheism refers to the belief in one god. But belief in any one god is not exactly
the same as belief in the One True God. While the Bible teaches monotheism, it does
not teach a generic monotheism (i.e., that it is possible for any spirit to be considered
the Supreme Deity). The Bible teaches that the God of Israel whose personal name is
YHVH (commonly known as Jehovah) – He alone is God Most High. The same
Scriptures also clearly teach that the gods worshipped by the pagan nations are in fact
demons (1Ki.18.39; 2Ki.19:18; 1Chron. 16:26; Psa. 96:5; Zech.14:9; 1Cor.8:4-6;
Gal.4:8). This may not be a politically correct viewpoint today, but the Bible focuses
on eternal truths and does not try to be a spiritual chameleon.
Many people today believe that religion’s job is to promote moral and ethical
behavior. According to this viewpoint, different religions with their different spirits,
names of god or gods, avatars etc., – all should be tolerated because these are
simply different ways of expressing the same divine and ethical truths. “Why argue
about whether He is called YHVH or Allah?” they question with exasperation. “Stop
quibbling about words!” The Bible does not agree with this argument and draws a
clear line in the sand: righteousness and strength, justification and salvation are to
3
A Perspective on Islam
be found only in the name of the God of Israel (Isa.45:23-25). From the Bible’s perspective,
a false god is a demon, and he who follows a false god engages in idolatry and participates in
counterfeit worship.
So the question must be asked: is the name of Allah an interchangeable name for the One
True God, or is Allah in fact a demonic spirit?
A. YHVH IS GOD’S OWN NAME
The Bible uses the personal name YHVH to describe the One True God. God declared to
Moses, “Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, ‘YHVH, the God of your fathers, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name
forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations” (Exod.3:15). If the Bible is true,
then God has just stated that the name YHVH is the personal name of God. It is unchangeable
and it lasts forever. This name which God has chosen for Himself is used nearly 9,000 times
in the Bible but not even once in the Koran.
Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) said that the Hebrew Scriptures are so reliable that even the smallest
letters, the jots ( “yod” in Hebrew) and the tittles (the protrusions or bumps on the Hebrew
letters themselves) are accurate. His point? We all can depend on the reliability of the Hebrew
Scriptures (Matt.5:17-18; 2Tim.3:15-17). In those Scriptures God has given mankind His own
name so that we will all be able to recognize that name (whenever it appears) as His own
signature in history, His personal trademark. The Bible says that YHVH is what the God of
Israel wants to be called. Considering these biblical ground rules, it is highly significant that
the Islamic Koran neither recognizes nor uses the name YHVH. Instead, 2,100 years after
YHVH revealed His name to Moses, Muhammad arose and declared that God’s unchangeable
name YHVH is unimportant, and that believers should now use another name, a different
name – Allah.
B. YHVH CALLS HIMSELF THE GOD OF I SRAEL
YHVH describes Himself repeatedly in the Bible as the God who is bound by everlasting
covenant to Israel. He is the God who loves Israel (Deut.7:7-9; Hos.2:14-23; 11:1-4,8; 14:4;
Amos 9:8-9; etc.). He is the God who chose Isaac (not Ishmael – Gen.17:18-21) and Jacob
as heirs, and the God who promises to save the Jewish people and restore them to their
homeland, the land of Israel (Isa. 49:5-6; Lk.2:67-77 etc.). Yet the Koran describes its god as
having a different agenda. The first major surah (chapter) in the Koran, “The Cow” (Surah
2) describes Allah’s hatred, rejection and cursing of the Jewish people (see also Surah
5:64,82; 9:30). The Koran gives priority to Ishmael and not to Isaac (Surah
2:125,127,133,136,140; 3:84; 4:164; 14:39,163; 19:54) and it is silent about YHVH’s
choosing of Isaac and Jacob.
The Koran teaches that some Jews, as punishment for their sins, have been changed into apes
and pigs (Surah 5:60). Islamic teaching also announces that the Jewish people will be destroyed
by Muslims at the End of Days. The Hadith , a compilation of Muhammad’s teachings written
down after the completion of the Koran, and considered authoritative by Islam, teaches: “. . . the
prophet… said: ‘The Hour (the Day of Judgment) will not begin until the Muslims fight the Jews
4
A Perspective on Islam
and kill them. A Jew will hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will say, “O Muslim,
O slave of Allah! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!” – except for the gharqad (box
thorn), for it is one of the trees of the Jews” (al-Bukhari 2926; Muslim, 2921-2).
Incidentally, this verse from the Hadith was recently quoted in its entirety with approval by
Osama Bin Laden in his May 28 1998 interview with John Bell of ABC News, “We are sure of
Allah’s victory and our victory against the Americans and the Jews as promised by the
prophet, peace be upon him: ‘Judgment day shall not come until the Muslims fight the
Jews, whereas the Jews will hide behind trees and stones, and the tree and the stone will speak
and say “Muslim, behind me a Jew come and kill him”, except for the al-Ghargad tree, which
is a Jewish plant’. We are sure of our victory.” Muhammad taught and prophesied that a future
holocaust would be carried out by the Islamic world against the Jewish nation.
If the God of the Bible is the One called YHVH, if He loves and has chosen the Jewish people
for eternity – then Allah cannot be the same as this God!
C. MESSIAH YESHUA LOVES HIS BRIDE
Yeshua (Jesus) is not only the Messiah of Israel; He also offers the free gift of salvation to the
world (John 10:14-16). All who embrace Yeshua (Jews and Gentiles) are part of the Bride of
Messiah and are deeply loved by Him (Eph.3:1-6; 5:22-27). Yet Allah of the Koran commands
Muslims to have a radically different attitude to Christians and Jews from what the Bible
commands: “Take not Jews and Christians as friends; they are friends of each other; and
whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does
not guide the unjust people!” (Surah 5:51). “O believers! Do not take my enemy and your
enemy for friends. Would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of the
truth, driving out the rasul (ed., Muhammad) and yourselves because you believe in Allah
your lord? If you go forth in jihad on my path and seeking my pleasure, would you manifest
love to them? I know what you conceal and what you manifest; and whoever of you does this,
he has indeed gone astray from the straight path” (Surah 3:28; see also Surah 60:1). Not
love, but suspicion, rejection, condemnation and enmity towards Christians and Jews is a
foundational part of Islam.
Islamic art can be the servant of Muslim theology. On the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, inside
the Dome of the Rock, an engraved Arabic inscription runs along the inside rim of that Golden
Dome, proclaiming in beautiful gold leaf calligraphy: “O People of the Book, do not overstep
proper limitations … and speak only the truth about Allah. The Messiah Yeshua, son of Mary,
is only a messenger of Allah… Believe therefore in Allah and his messengers, and do not say
‘Three’. . . Allah is only one Allah. Far be it from his glory that he should have a son.” This
quote from the Koran (Surah 4:171; see also 5:75) clearly denies the deity of Messiah Yeshua
and His incarnation. In this sacred shrine of Islam, the central place afforded to this antiMessiah declaration is no accident.
D. YHVH HAS CHOSEN JERUSALEM
YHVH has chosen Jerusalem out of all the cities of the world to be His own. This truth is
reflected in one of the strongest rebukes addressed to Satan in the Scriptures: “And YHVH said
5
A Perspective on Islam
to Satan, ‘YHVH rebuke you, Satan! Indeed, YHVH who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you!’”
(Zech. 3:2) Jerusalem is called the City of David over 40 times, and the Bible is full of
Messianic promises that the Son of David will rule over the entire world from Jerusalem,
sitting on David’s Throne.
Yet the Koran asserts that an oasis in the Arabian desert – Mecca – is actually Allah’s chosen
city (Surah 2:125-27; 3:97), and that the God’s temporal ruler comes not from David’s seed
but from Ishmael’s Arabian descendants (Surah 33:40).
The God of the Bible wants to be recognized by His name and His many loves (the Jewish
people, the Church, the city of Jerusalem, the land of Israel and David’s descendants). Islam
stands opposed to all of the above. On this evidence alone one can clearly conclude that Allah
is not the God of the Bible. He does not have the same heart and passions as YHVH. He does
not have the same thoughts as the God of Israel. He is not the same God.
E. THE PRE-ISLAMIC ALLAH
Most Muslims believe that Allah has always been the One True God (Surah 2:136: 29:46). They
believe that Abraham, Hagar, Ishmael, Moses, David and Yeshua were all Muslims (e.g. Surah
2:135, 140; 3:67; 22:78). The Koran believes that Jews and Christians have forged and
distorted the Scriptures (Surah 3:71,99). Islam believes that originally, the Bible was full of
references to Allah, Mecca and the Kab’a (the black cube, an ancient pagan center of
pilgrimage in Mecca) but that nearly all these references have been deliberately removed from
the Bible by non-Muslims. However, a brief look at Arabian history prior to Muhammad reveals
that the origins of Allah worship are to be found not in Abraham but in pagan polytheism.
In approximately 430 BC Herodotus the Greek historian refers to the fact that various deities
were worshipped in Arabia, including a female deity known as al-il-Lat (Arabic for ‘the
goddess’; The Histories, Book iii ). The Koran, written down nearly 1100 years later, refers
to the fact that three female deities named al-Lat (probably the same word as al-il-Lat ),
al-Uzza , and Manat were worshipped in Arabia. People would often turn to these goddesses
in intercession (Surah 53:19-20). These three deities were also known as “the daughters of
Allah”, as the edited text of Surah 53:21-22 explains. These three deities were only some of
the many spirits and demons worshipped by Arabs in the centuries before Muhammad.
Another such deity was Hubal – a Moabite/ Nabatean/North Arabian demon – known from
stone inscriptions dated to 1-5 AD, whose idol was a giant stone placed atop the Ka’ba
(according to Ibn al-Kalbi). Other objects of worship included Isaf and Na’ilah (two lovers
who were turned to stone for cohabiting in the Ka’ba, and whose idols were placed on two
little hills, Safa and Marwa, near the Ka’ba), Awf (a great bird), and Allah.
A book called ‘Siratu’l Rasul’ (“The Life of the Messenger”, originally written by Ibn Is’haq in
the 600’s AD and later revised by Ibn Hisham) recounts a story about Abdu’l Muttalib,
Muhammad’s grandfather. He was preparing to sacrifice one of his sons to “the god at the
Ka’ba”. This god’s name is known from other Muslim sources as Hubal – possibly a form of
the Semitic ‘Ha-Ba’al’ (‘The Lord’). Hubal was known as ‘rabb al-bayt’ or ‘lord of the house’.
According to Ibn Is’haq, the idol of Hubal was originally brought from al-Balq’a in Syria to the
6
A Perspective on Islam
Ka’ba in Mecca by an Arab named Amr bin Luhayya. In the above account divination was then
used to determine Hubal’s will (by casting arrows to the ground). Muhammad’s father
Abd’allah (Arabic for ‘slave of Allah’ – an indication that Allah was already one of the many
deities worshipped at the Ka’ba) was chosen by divination to be sacrificed. The grandfather
then consulted a sorcerer who counseled him on how to obtain an answer (through divination)
which would satisfy the deity yet leave Muhammad’s father alive.
This was the religious background that shaped young Muhammad’s spiritual world view –
sacrificing children, consulting sorcerers, and worshipping tribal idols. When he was
approximately 40 years old, Muhammad received a spiritual revelation, ostensibly from the
angel Gabriel (‘Jibril’ in Arabic; see Siratu’l Rasul 5:152; Mishkat 4:356-57). This spirit
revealed to him that Allah (the god worshipped by his father Abd’allah) was not just one of
many spirits venerated in the Ka’ba, but that Allah was actually the supreme deity. Further,
Jibril told him that Allah wanted Muhammad to become his ‘rasul’ – his apostolic prophet.
Muhammad’s reaction was anxiety and fear that he might be going mad. His wife Khadija and
her cousin Waraqa reassured him that his prophesying was similar to what Moses had
received. Eventually Muhammad became convinced of this as well.
Allah, the spirit who for centuries had seemed content to take his place in the Ka’ba pantheon
along with 359 other demons (that number comes from Waqqidi’s biography of Muhammad,
written 120 years after Muhammad’s death), was suddenly describing himself as the ‘only true
god’. A deity who had been content to receive worship in a polytheistic shrine for centuries
was now advocating strict ‘monotheism’ on his own terms. Allah’s accommodation to
polytheism is totally different from what the Bible teaches about YHVH’s response to a
polytheistic context (when the Ark of the Covenant was brought into the Philistine shrine of
Dagon in 1Sam.5:1-12)!
And so Islam (Arabic for ‘submission’ [to Allah ]) was born. One of the many demons of the
Arabian desert would now become famous as “Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, The Beneficent,
the Merciful, Master of the Day of Judgment” – ‘The One True God’. Monotheism had been
suddenly redefined by Muhammad to mean the worship of a desert spirit as the One True God.
F. BY THEIR FRUITS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM
The spirit known as Jibril would later give Muhammad many revelations, including the
following — God has rejected and cursed the Jews and the Christians (Surah 2:89,105,213;
9:30); Yeshua is not God’s Son (Surah 4:171; 5:72-75; 19:88-93; cf. 1 John 2:18-23); there
is no Trinity (Surah 5:116-18); the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, has been deliberately
distorted by Jews and Christians to the point where it is no longer the word of God (Surah
2:113,120,159; 4:46; 5:41; 57:27); Yeshua never died on the cross (Surah 4:157); it is a
‘divine’ commandment to persecute Jews and Christians, to defeat them in battle and then to
consign them either to slavery or to death (Surah 8:39; 9:5,29: 47:4).
These Koranic teachings mentioned above cannot be biblically described as ‘good and
peaceful’. They are anti-Jewish and anti-Christian. And they are not teachings which only
represent ‘some extreme sect of Islam’. These are Muhammad’s own words in the Koran and
7
A Perspective on Islam
the Hadith ! The spirit who communicated these teachings to Muhammad was neither the God
of the Bible nor His messenger. Allah is not Jehovah, and Islam can not be described as a
biblically monotheistic religion. Though Islam worships a spirit whom it calls ‘the one true
God’, the Bible classifies that spirit as a demon. Islam is not true biblical monotheism. It is
actually a demonic counterfeit of true monotheism.
At Washington’s National Cathedral a memorial service for the victims of the terror attacks
was held on September 17. One Christian minister prayed “O God of Abraham, God of
Muhammad…” In light of the above referenced Islamic teaching, one point must be
emphasized: the God of Israel is the Lord of every man, and in that sense He is the God of
Muhammad, Buddha and Bin Laden. But if the prayer quoted above meant to say that the God
of Muhammad (Allah) is the same deity as the God of Abraham, then this is bearing false
witness, biblically speaking. Allah is not the God of Abraham, and Allah is not the God of
the Bible.
A word of explanation needs to be added here concerning the use of the word ‘Allah’ by
Arabic speaking Christians in the Middle East. Most Arab Christians use the word ‘Allah’
instead of ‘YHVH’ and ‘God’. Most Arabic Bibles (though not all) often translate the words
‘God’ and ‘YHVH’ using the word ‘Allah’. Most Arab Christians address God in prayer by the
name ‘Allah’.
Three questions immediately arise. How did this situation come about? Does the God of Israel
receive Arabic Christian prayers addressed to Allah? What can Arabic speakers do to make
their prayers come more in line with biblical truth and practice?
In George Orwell’s classic book ‘1984’ vast legions of editors daily pored over encyclopedias,
books and newspapers, removing and altering printed facts which were suddenly considered
inappropriate or politically incorrect by the current dictator. In the world of ‘1984’ history
was rewritten on a daily basis, so that the state’s historical archives would ‘accurately’ reflect
the zigs and zags of totalitarian ‘truthspeak’. This chilling parable was actual practice during
Stalin’s reign in Russia. It was also practiced by Islam in the 7th and 8th centuries AD.
In the mid to late 600’s AD Islamic leaders were bothered by the great amount of
contradictions, errors and divergent traditions in the developing Koranic traditions.
According to the traditional story, massive effort was made to first gather up all existing
Koranic manuscripts. Then Islamic authorities established one ‘kosher’ Koranic version.
Finally they destroyed all the other offending manuscripts. At that point, it was announced with
great fanfare that the Koran was obviously of divine origin, since all Koranic manuscripts
agreed with each other in every detail! Perhaps some Bible scholars wish that their job in
ascertaining the original texts of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures were so easy! But leaving
such scholarly fantasies aside, it is obvious that Islam strenuously tried to suppress differing
histories of Muhammad, and instead chose one form of Muhammad’s words which would
now be forever considered ‘Islamically correct’.
8
A Perspective on Islam
Here is the relevant quote from the Hadith :
“Narrated Anas bin Malik: Hudhaifa bin Al-Yaman came to Uthman (ed. 644-656 AD) at the
time when the people of Sha’m and the people of Iraq were waging war to conquer Armenia
and Azerbaijan. Hudhaifa was afraid of their (the people of Sha’m and Iraq) differences in
the recitation of the Qur’an, so he said to Uthman, ‘O Chief of the Believers! Save this nation
before they differ about the Book (Qur’an) as Jews and the Christians did before’. So
Uthman sent a message to Hafsa, saying, ‘Send us the manuscripts of the Qur’an so that we
may compile the Qur’anic materials in perfect copies and return the manuscripts to you’.
Hafsa sent it to Uthman. Uthman then ordered Zaid bin Thabit, Abdullah bin az-Zubair, Sa’id
bin al-As, and Abdur-Rahman bin Harith bin Hisham to rewrite the manuscripts in perfect
copies. Uthman said to the three Quraishi men, ‘In case you disagree with Zaid bin Thabit
on any point in the Qur’an, then write it in the dialect of the Quraish as the Qur’an was
revealed in their tongue’. They did so, and when they had written many copies, Uthman
returned the original manuscripts to Hafsa. Uthman sent to every Muslim province one copy
of what they had copied, and ordered that all the other Qur’anic materials, whether written
in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies, be burnt.” (Sahih al-Bukhari , Vol. 6, p.479)
Islam would apply this same ‘1984’ trend in two other areas – pre-Islamic Arab pagan shrines
and evidences, and the name of Allah. A concerted effort was made by the new Islamic religion to
destroy any traces of pre-Islamic Arab paganism (called in Arabic the al-Jahiliyah period, the ‘age
of ignorance ’). Offending pagan inscriptions were demolished and documents disappeared, in a
similar way to how the Taliban recently defaced and destroyed ancient Buddhist statues in
Afghanistan. Perhaps some of this behavior was motivated by a hatred of idolatry. In any case, by
wiping the slate clean of pre-Islamic history, Muslim leaders were now free to recreate ancient
Arab history in their own image – exactly like the newspaper editors of Orwell’s ‘1984’.
Since Islam was claiming that Abraham had always been a Muslim hanif (a follower of Allah
during the time of al-Jahiliyah ), it only made logical sense for Islam to ‘up its own ante’ and
claim that the Arabic name of Allah (and not the Hebrew ‘YHVH’) was used from time
immemorial as God’s correct name. That is how it came about that Muhammad began to teach
that ‘Allah’ and not ‘YHVH’ is the personal name of the One True God.
It is essential to understand the ramifications of this Islamic claim. If
the Bible is right (that God’s eternal name is YHVH) then Islam is wrong. And if Islam is right
(that God’s eternal name is the Arabic word ‘Allah’), then the Bible is wrong. Biblically
speaking, Islam’s use of the word ‘Allah’ counterfeits the biblical teaching that God’s eternal
personal and unchangeable name is YHVH. Islam is guilty of violating the
third commandment, “You shall not misuse the name of YHVH your God, for YHVH will not
hold anyone guiltless who misuses His name!” (Deut.5:11).
By the same token, it would be beneficial for the Christian world to consider why it has by and
large avoided using the personal name YHVH, substituting ‘God’ or ‘the Lord’ in its place.
Perhaps Zech.14:9’s vision of the future can help in these deliberations: “YHVH will be king
of the whole earth. On that day there will be one YHVH, and His name will be the only name”.
9
A Perspective on Islam
Muhammad brought the name ‘Allah’ to prominence in the Arab-speaking world, and this
name has never moved away from center stage. Today Muslims (and many Arab Christians!)
proclaim that Allah is “the only word for God in Arabic” and that “it is the only word which
has ever been used in Arabic for God”. Since most Christian believers in the West are not
specialists in Classical Arabic or in pre-Islamic history, any thoughtful discussion of the
subject tends to end right here. After all, if most Arabs want to use a demonically influenced
name for God, why should non-Arab Christians put up a fuss?
Simply put, the problem with the Islamic argument is that it is based on bluster and bad
grammar, not on evidence. First of all, one is hard pressed to find Arabic Christian materials
predating Muhammad. This means that there is nearly no evidence that Arab-speaking
Christians called the God of the Bible by the name ‘Allah’. Since the first complete Bible
translated into Arabic only comes from the 10th century AD, no one can clearly prove what the
God of the Bible was called by pre-Islamic Christians. Furthermore, Arabs in the Arabian
peninsula tended to pass religious teachings on by oral tradition. This means that there never
was much written evidence regarding what name Arab Christians used for God. To add to the
problem, much of Arab Christian civilization in the Arabian peninsula was wiped out in
Muhammad’s initial jihad , its faithful murdered or exiled by Allah’s servants. The parallels to
Orwell’s ‘1984’ are striking.
It would be correct to say that today, the Islamic attempt to read the name of Muhammad’s
Allah back into Jewish and later Arab Christian history has by and large succeeded in the Arab
world. Regrettably, many Arab Christians have unwittingly bought into this hidden Islamic
agenda. But it bears repeating that it is not historically, epigraphically or linguistically
provable to say that Allah is the original word used by Arab Christians to worship YHVH.
Though many advocates of the name ‘Allah’ allege that this Arabic word is derived from alIlaah (the real Arabic word for God) or alaha (the Syriac word for God) or eloha (a Hebrew
word for God), none of these conjectures fits the rules of Arabic grammar. They are simply
fanciful speculations which have no linguistic defense. The Arabic language has always had a
valid word for God ( al-Ilaah ). At the same time Allah was long known as the personal name
of a demon worshipped at the Ka’ba. Edward William Lane, the editor of the original eight
volume world standard Arabic-English Lexicon (1863), concluded on linguistic grounds that
‘Allah’ is not derived from any Semitic word for God, but is instead a personal name.
Bible believers do not have the right to follow Islam in dumping the personal name of God
(YHVH) and replacing it with the ancient personal name of an Arabian demon (Allah). For a
more in-depth consideration of linguistic issues, please consult this web site:
www.m4christ.org/files/A2/AllahLing.htm
Will God hear the prayer of a Christian Arab who directs his prayer to the Father in Yeshua’s
name, all the while addressing Him as Allah? I personally believe that the blood of Yeshua is
so powerful and strong, and that God’s heart is so merciful and discerning, that He will receive
prayer directed to Him and offered in the name of Yeshua, even though many Christians
10
A Perspective on Islam
persist in calling God ‘Allah’ instead of His chosen name – YHVH. Perhaps the apostle’s words
reveal YHVH’s heart to us on this matter, in that “mercy triumphs over justice” (James 2:13).
At the same time, Bible believers should never have allowed Islam to establish Christian faith
or practice. Believers should not be using the name of an Arabian demon as a term of
endearment for the God of Israel. Arabic speaking believers in Yeshua need to be aware that
various terms to address the God of the Bible are available apart from the Islamic word
‘Allah’. Al-Ilaah (God) is one of these options, ar-Rab (the Great One) is another, and
Yahwah (an Arabic equivalent of YHVH) is also a respectable biblical choice.
G. ARE ISLAM’S CLAIMS TO BE TOLERATED AND RESPECTED?
Islam is one of the world’s major religions, but it fails the biblical test of being considered
true monotheism, since Allah and the revelation he gave to Muhammad are fundamentally
opposed to the Bible. This should not be surprising to Bible believers, since paganism and
demonic worship are the spiritual matrix out of which Allah was elevated.
In a pluralistic world, all religions (whether true or false) are to be tolerated and afforded
legal protection. It is not the primary concern of a secular state to judge the truth-claims of
any one religion. Judaism and Buddhism, Satanism and Christianity, Islam and Wicca – all
have the right to exist and propagate their beliefs. In that sense, in a secular society Islam is
to be tolerated and respected, its mosques and madrasas (Islamic seminaries) to be free
from attack, its adherents to be treated with courtesy, friendliness and respect.
At the same time, it should be remembered that the Koran claims that only Islam’s religious
positions are true, and that Christianity’s and Judaism’s claims are distorted or even willfully
misleading. Since Islam is free to preach and teach according to that religious perspective, it
is only logical that Christians and Jews should exercise their own freedom of religion when it
comes to pointing out where Islam departs radically from biblical truth. Bible believers
should also not be ashamed to point out where Islam’s origins fall under the biblical
description of being pagan and demonic.
A few pages from now the question of jihad (holy war) will be considered. It will be seen that
Islam teaches about a future world battle between Islam on the one hand, and what we now
call Western Christianity and secular democracy on the other. Islamic forces will conquer the
West and, in this future Islamic dictatorship, Christians who willingly submit to Muslim rule
will have limited civil rights and a nearly slave status. However, if they oppose Islam they are
to be massacred. Secularists will be given a simpler choice – conversion to Islam or the death
penalty. The fate of the Jews is the clearest – they will simply be slaughtered.
Though these futuristic jihad visions may now be explained by Muslim clerics to be an Islamic
expression of respect and tolerance for defeated non-believers, the rest of the world may not
so willingly appreciate or embrace these same definitions. A look around the planet at the
turn of the 21st century reveals that respect and toleration for other religions tend to
characterize democracies and not countries ruled by Islamic dictatorships (e.g., Saudi
Arabia, Iran, Sudan, Afghanistan, etc.). Islam cannot have it both ways – it cannot
11
A Perspective on Islam
simultaneously portray itself in the West as a champion of democratic principles of respect
and toleration for other religions, and still remain true to Muhammad’s call for jihad .
Islam foresees and calls for a violent armed clash between Muslims and the other nations.
Watchmen who point this out are not fostering religious hatred or hatred of Islam. To point
out these Islamic teachings is to speak the truth and to deliver a prophetic warning.
II. ARE MOST MUSLIMS PEACE LOVING AND NOT TERRORISTS?
Part of this question can be answered quickly and positively. Many Muslims are peace loving
and desire nothing more than to raise their families and lead a quiet life. Muslims are human
beings made in the image of the God of Israel. They share a common humanity with all other
descendants of Adam and Eve, and no one should forget that their hopes and joys are very
similar to every other person’s hopes and joys. Most Muslims are not terrorists. Only a small
percentage of Muslims would be classified by Western or Israeli intelligence services as
terrorists.
But this is only part of the story. What the West considers terrorism, many Muslims consider
Islamic heroism. There is great support internationally in the Muslim street for Osama Bin
Laden, for anti-American and anti-Israeli terror, for Sadaam Hussein and for violent jihad .
Spurred on by calls to jihad , the Islamic masses can be very quickly roused to uncontrolled
riots and frightening displays of pro-terrorist violence. Recent riots in Pakistan, Kashmir,
Indonesia and Gaza are current, frightening examples.
Much violence has also occurred in the Islamic world when Muslims fight against Muslim
(e.g., when Islamic military dictatorships with a more secular world view attempt to crush
Muslim fundamentalist organizations, or when radical Islamic groups try to destabilize and
overthrow Muslim military regimes). Though Muslims are not necessarily violent, an unusual
degree of violence does characterize many Islamic societies. A brief description of recent
Muslim violence in various Islamic countries brings this point home.
ALGERIA has been reeling from a war between GIA (Armed Islamic Group – radical Muslim
terrorists) and its established government (a more secular Muslim military dictatorship)
since 1992. Gruesome reports of entire villages having their throats slit, famous pop singers
assassinated for singing Western influenced music, government instigated massacres of
regions whose loyalties are suspect – these have left more than 70,000 murdered over the
past 9 years. GIA cells are believed to have cooperated in Bin Laden’s September 11 attacks.
LIBYA is an Islamic dictatorship under Muammar al-Qaddafi. It has been one of the chief
training centers for world terrorism, and has executed many attacks such as the bombing
of a Berlin discotheque in March 1986 where US solders were murdered, as well as the
terrorist bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in December 1988. It has
cooperated with Pakistan in the funding and development of an Islamic nuclear bomb, as
well as developing chemical warfare abilities. Libya has been a main supporter of such
12
A Perspective on Islam
terrorist groups as the Columbian M-19, Red Brigades, IRA, Ahmed Jibril’s PFLP, Arafat’s
PLO etc. In the 1970’s Qaddafi awarded Yasir Arafat $5 million in recognition of his terror
operation at the 1972 Munich Olympics which led to the massacre of Israeli athletes.
EGYPT’s President Sadat was assassinated by terrorists associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad
in October 1981. This group was later co-planner of the World Trade Center bombings in
1993 (along with Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman’s Gama’aal-Islamiya or Islamic Group) and
seems to have been involved in the September 2001 attack as well. Its top leader was Ayman
al-Zawahiri. This man was one of the planners of Sadat’s assassination, and he now functions
as Osama Bin Laden’s top deputy for military operations (see A Portrait of Egypt: A
Journey Through the World of Militant Islam, Mary Anne Weaver, Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, New York 2000). In the 1950s Egypt originally financed, trained and ran the first
terrorist raids of the fedayin , and in 1964 helped establish the PLO as a terrorist
organization. Egypt was also the first Islamic country to use poison gas against fellow Muslims
in the North Yemen war of 1962-67. The Christian Copts of the Egyptian Nile Valley have been
subject to decades of torture, murder, raping and destruction of property on a regular basis,
with a blind eye being turned by Muslim authorities (see The Rumbling Volcano: Islamic
Fundamentalism in Egypt, Nabeel Jabbour, Mandate Press, Pasadena, CA 1993).
SUDAN is considered one of world terrorism’s main centers. Osama Bin Laden has a strong
network in that country. According to the US Grand Jury indictment against Osama Bin
Laden, the bombers of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es-Salaam, Tanzania
were trained and sent out from that country. The Islamic dictatorship ‘National Islamic
Front’ ruling Sudan has been overseeing the massacre, enslavement, rape and murder of the
Christian and animist inhabitants of Southern Sudan, forcibly converting survivors and
prisoners to Islam. Years ago the NIF proclaimed a jihad against its ‘domestic enemy’, and
since 1983 more than 1.9 million people have been murdered or have been caused to die
as a result of the actions of the NIF in southern Sudan and the Nuba mountains.
SYRIA and LEBANON are also a world center of terrorism, as well as of opium and hashish
cultivation. Between 1975-82 over 100,000 Lebanese were killed in the Lebanese civil war
between the PLO, the Shiite and Sunni Muslims, the Druze and the Maronite Christians. In
the Syrian-controlled Bekaa Valley the Hezbollah terrorist groups train and send out forces
to attack Israel. According to the US State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for
Counter-terrorism’s 2000 report, Syria oversees the following terrorist networks operating
and training in Lebanon’s Bekaa: Hezbollah, Osama Bin Laden’s al-Qa‘ida (Arabic, ‘The
Base’) network, Hamas, the Palestine Islamic Jihad, George Habash’s PFLP-GC, Asbat alAnsar, and several local Sunni extremist organizations. Other sources would add the names
of the Japanese Red Army and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Syria not only controls Lebanon’s
terrorist training camps, but allows Islamic terrorists to base out of Damascus. In February
1982 the Syrian city of Hama was subject to a 27 day siege. The Syrian Army under the
command of Rifa’at Assad surrounded the city and trapped possibly 100 members of the
Muslim Brotherhood who were opposed to President Assad’s regime. Artillery shelling of
that city caused between 10,000 and 38,000 civilian casualties. Fifteen thousand people
were untraceable as a result of the massacre. In September 2001 two PFLP terrorist were
13
A Perspective on Islam
arrested crossing into Israel from Jordan, having been trained in Syria to blow up the two
towers of Tel Aviv’s Azrieli Center.
JORDAN became a base of PLO terror operations against Israel between 1964 and 1970. When
the PLO tried to overthrow King Hussein’s government in September 1970 to set up
a terrorist dictatorship in its stead, the king responded by unleashing his Bedouin Legionnaires
against the PLO. Approximately 3,500 PLO members were killed during those weeks in ‘Black
September’, with many terrorists actually escaping to Israel to request asylum.
THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY continues to engage in open terrorism. Of the 176
Jewish terror victims in the past year, 71 of them were committed by members of the
PA security forces. Calls for a jihad against the Jewish people and for the destruction of the
State of Israel are regularly broadcast on PA controlled radio and television. On September
11, the day of the World Trade Center bombing, the PA controlled newspaper al-Hayat alJadida declared, “The suicide bombers of today are the noble successors of the Lebanese
bombers, who taught the US Marines a tough lesson. These suicide bombers are the salt of
the earth, the engines of history. They are among the most honorable people among us.” The
PA appointed Mufti Ekrima Sabri gave a sermon at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem in late
August 2001, in which he called on Allah “to destroy the United States and Great Britain, as
well as those who help the two countries”.
SAUDI ARABI continues to bankroll many terrorist groups, though the funding mostly
comes through private individuals. Many terrorist organizations receive substantial chunks
of their funding through the government-tolerated generosity of the Saudis. Jews are
forbidden to set foot in Saudi Arabia, and anti-Jewish literature is readily available. Christian
houses of worship are illegal, and Christians who are discovered practicing their faith are
often arrested, tortured and sometimes beheaded.
IRAN is the center of Shi’ite Islam, and a world leader in exporting terrorism. It is a haven
for many terrorist organizations, and funds Hezbollah’s and Islamic Jihad’s activities against
Israel. Iran also supports and offers safe haven to Algeria’s GIA, Egypt’s al-Gama’a alIslamiyya , Hamas, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, PFLP-GC, Kurdistan Worker’s Party, Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan, etc. Iran’s government held US embassy personnel hostage for 444
days in 1979-80, and has been linked to many top terror attacks around the world. It has
continually called for the destruction of the Great Satan (USA) and the Little Satan (Israel)
through jihad . Hezbollah’s former leader is Imad Mugniyeh, the planner and mastermind of
Hezbollah kidnappings, suicide bombings and many especially violent airplane hijackings.
He is also the man who oversaw the torture to death of William Buckley (the CIA station chief
in Beirut) and the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aries in 1992. At present he
resides in Iran and in recent months has had significant contact with Bin Laden’s top
leadership, including Ayman al-Zawahari. The September 11 hijackings show strikingly
similar tradecraft to Mugniyeh’s methods.
IRAQ is perhaps the most well known country which both exports terrorism and murders its
own citizens. In March 1988 Sadaam Hussein launched a chemical warfare attack against the
14
A Perspective on Islam
town of Halabja in northern Iraq. Mustard gas and nerve gases were deployed. Between 5,000
and 12,000 Iraqi Kurds were killed immediately, and an estimated minimum of 40,000 were
injured. His brutality against the Kurds, the Iranians and the Kuwaitis have earned him the
Arabic title ‘the butcher of Baghdad’. Sadaam has stirred up riots across the Muslim world by
his declarations that he is leading a jihad against the forces of the godless West and of Israel.
His drive to obtain non-conventional weapons (atomic, biological and chemical) coupled
with his cruel invasion of Kuwait, triggered the Gulf War of 1991. Sadaam was one of the few
world leaders who publicly applauded the recent attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.
AFGHANISTAN’s non-Arab country is ruled by the Islamic Taliban dictatorship. It is a center
for training some of the most radical and violent Islamic terrorists, and the center of Bin
Laden’s al-Qa‘ida network. The cruelty of this Islamic regime against its own people is
internationally known and documented. Eight Christians working for the humanitarian aid
organization “Shelter” are facing the death penalty for the alleged crime of sharing their
faith with Afghanis.
PAKISTAN is a non-Arab Muslim country. Christians accused of sharing their faith in
Pakistan have been jailed, tortured and lynched. Osama Bin Laden has many contacts with
Pakistan’s intelligence community and has received active support from many sources in
Pakistan. Over 30,000 Pakistanis fought as jihad warriors against Russian forces in
Afghanistan. Recent violent anti-American riots and calls for jihad against the West show the
volatile nature of many Pakistani Muslims. Recently President Musharraf publicly accused
Hindus and Jews of plotting against Pakistan. This was partially done in an effort to divert
Muslim anger away from Pakistan’s leaders, who are cooperating with America against
fellow Muslims in Afghanistan and the mujahid Bin Laden.
INDONESIA , a non-Arab Muslim country, has recently seen horrendous Muslim instigated
riots against Indonesian and immigrant Chinese Christians. A campaign of targeted rapes,
murders and church burnings throughout Indonesia has garnered world media attention.
This brief survey of violence and terrorism in Muslim countries, and the solid evidence of
widespread Islamic support for Muslim terrorist organizations, refutes the accuracy of the
mantra that many are repeating today, that Islam is simply ‘the way of peace’ and that there is
no such thing as Islamic terrorism. There are a sizable and active number of Muslim
organizations and Islamic countries which support, export and engage in terrorism against
Western targets. They are not a lunatic fringe. They are following Muhammad’s command to
engage in jihad – Islamic holy war (starting on page 18) .
Though not all Islamic terrorism is sponsored by Arabs, the lion’s share of it brings together
two potent elements – Islam and the Arab people. An example: of the 26 terrorist
organizations whose identities have recently been published and whose financial holdings
in the US have been seized, all are Islamic and most are Arab-led. Part of the key to this
volatile mix may be found in the Bible, in Genesis 16:10-12. There the Angel of the Lord
prophesies to Hagar concerning her yet to be born son Ishmael. “I will greatly multiply your
15
A Perspective on Islam
descendants so that they shall be too many to count… Behold, you are with child, and you
shall bear a son. And you shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has given heed to your
affliction. And he will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone, and
everyone’s hand will be against him, and he will live to the east of (ed., or in opposition
to/against) all of his brothers.”
This prophetic word has shaped much of the destiny of the greater Arab nation and its
relationship with the world. Fierce independence, a wild and untamable soul, and arrogant
animosity can characterize Arab dealings (at their worst) with the world. But the Arab world
at its best manifests freedom of abandoned worship, generosity, graciousness and sacrificial
zeal. When Messiah Jesus is allowed to transform their hearts, the descendants of Ishmael will
find God bringing sweet out of the bitter, and they will discover the beauty of their Abrahamic
connection in a totally new way. Peace and cooperation will supplant wildness and strife, and
love between Arab and Jewish cousins will bloom again.
We must remember that God has a heart overflowing with compassion and saving love for the
multitude of Ishmael’s sons and daughters. The Living One who saw Hagar and her son dying
of thirst in the wilderness, has preserved Ishmael’s line for redemptive purposes as well. Great
revival will break out throughout the Arab world but prior to this, believing Jews and Gentiles
need to be willing to pay the price in prayers, tears and blood to see the Arab world set free
from the demonic deception known as Islam.
Another biblical passage that may have some bearing is Psalm 120. The Jewish psalmist
complains that he has become exasperated in his having to deal with deceitfulness and
warlike strife in the tents of Kedar (an ancient name for an Arabian tribe). “Too long has my
soul had its dwelling with those who hate peace. I am for peace, but when I speak, they are
for war” (Psa.120:6-7). It seems that not much has changed in 3,000 years. The Arab people
have long had the tendency to see themselves at war with the world. The Bible indicates that
this tendency goes back not only to the jihad of Muhammad’s day, but even to the days of
Ishmael and King David.
A third passage which helps to explain the spiritual dynamic of Islam is Hebrews 12:15-17.
This passage is based on two scriptures in Gen.25. In Gen.25:22-23 YHVH prophesies to
Rebecca that the right of firstborn inheritance (physically and spiritually) will rest on Jacob
the second born. In Gen.25:31-34 Esau fulfills this prophetic word by selling his birthright to
Jacob for a bowl of red lentil pottage. The Book to the Hebrews notes that a root of bitterness
sprang up in Esau’s heart after God affirmed that Jacob would indeed possess the promise.
“See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up
causes trouble, and by it many be defiled; that there be no immoral or godless person like
Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that even afterwards, when he
desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though
he sought for it with tears”.
This bitter root based on jealousy of Jacob has spiritually defiled the majority of the
Arab peoples. Satan has complicated matters by using Islam to fan the flames of hatred
16
A Perspective on Islam
toward the Jewish people — first among the Arabs, and then through them to the rest of the
Islamized world. Islam has perpetuated this spiritual striving, elevating it to the level of a
religious commandment.
Another spiritual factor concerning the Arab people is found in Isaac’s prophetic word
over Esau, given after Jacob had received the right of the firstborn: “’I have made [Jacob]
lord over you and have made all his relatives his servants, and I have sustained him with
grain and new wine. . . Your dwelling will be away from the earth’s richness, away from
the dew of heaven above. You will live by the sword and you will serve your brother. But
when you grow restless, you will throw his yoke from off your neck.’ Esau held a grudge
against Jacob because of the blessing his father had given him. He said to himself, “The
days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” When Rebecca
was told what her older son Esau had said, she sent for her younger son Jacob and said
to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself with the thought of killing you”
(Gen.27:37,39-42).
Isaac prophesied that Esau’s descendants would eventually move away from the land of Israel
and make their home in the deserts. This process began when Esau moved to Edom, the
desert area between southern Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Isaac adds that they would not make
their living so much from agriculture as from the sword – from conquest, and from pillaging
and plundering desert caravans. The Bedouin of the Arabian desert, and specifically
Muhammad’s followers from Yathrib/Medina, began the expansion of Islam by raiding
peaceful trading caravans.
Islam’s first military exploits did not involve spreading the religion of Allah, but they were simply
piracy – attacking and despoiling other Arabs on their way to the pagan shrines of Mecca. These
raids were known in Arabic as razzia , and were an old pre-Islamic Arabian custom. Muhammad
himself organized 82 raids, leading between 19 and 26 of them personally. Within a short time
robbing, raping and murder would be elevated to a spiritual commandment called ‘jihad for the
sake of Allah’. Isaac’s prophecy over Esau was about to come true with devastating results for
the startled inhabitants of Africa, Asia and southern Europe.
But God has not only spoken hard words over the Arab people. The Hebrew prophets
proclaim that a radically different prophetic vision will transform many Middle Easterners at
the End of Days. Isaiah speaks of a day yet future when many Arabs will turn to the God of
Jacob and find His healing. This will not be considered a day of defeat for the Arab nations,
but rather an entrance into true victory and blessing as the rift in Abraham’s family will finally
be healed. Ishmael and Esau will at last find joy and covenantal blessing as they embrace their
Jewish cousins, accepting them as the ones who have received the right of inheritance which
belongs to the firstborn.
“In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument
to the Lord at its border. So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in
that day they will acknowledge the Lord . . . In that day there will be a highway from Egypt
to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians
17
A Perspective on Islam
and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will be the third, along with
Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying,
‘Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance’”
(Isa.19:19,21,23-25).
One of the keys to peace between the sons of Ishmael and the sons of Israel actually lies in
the hands of the Jewish people. When God grants grace, humility and revelation to Israel, the
Jewish people will be able to honor and respect Ishmael and Esau as Abraham and Isaac’s
physically firstborn sons — though God’s ‘promise of the firstborn’ will always remain Isaac’s
and Jacob’s inheritance.
Even though Abraham’s earthly family remains very dysfunctional, believers should
remember that the Arab nation is the Jewish people’s elder brother. Pray that the fractured
physical family of Abraham will be healed in fullness, Even today, honor and slighted
honor is a powerful dynamic among Arab people and the source of much conflict.
Pray that the Jewish people grow deep enough in grace to bless and honor their Arab
brothers, bringing healing and restoration. Pray that God will so transform Arab and
Jewish hearts that Jews will request wise and godly counsel from their Arab brothers, and
that Arabs will gladly share their “older brotherly” wisdom and protection with younger
brother Jacob, the Jewish people whom God calls “the firstborn son among all the
nations” (Exod.4:22-23).
III. “JIHAD DOESN’T MEAN HOLY WAR — MUHAMMAD
NEVER TAUGHT HOLY WAR.”
The recent focus on jihad and mujahidin has caused some Islamic spokesmen in the West
to declare that Islam does not believe in holy war, and that anyone who believes this is
defaming Islam and is ignorant of Arabic. Most Westerners are ignorant about Islam and
Arabic, and are also committed to a form of secular pluralism. When accusations are leveled
at them, many Westerners simply step back, lower their heads and mumble, “I’m sorry! No
offense intended to you or your religion!”
Ever since the terror attacks occurred on the Pentagon and on New York City, Hollywood and
the U.S. State Department have stepped into the gap, attempting to lower tensions and
dissipate American anger against Islam. Pop stars and politicians, movie stars and TV show
hosts have suddenly become authorities on Islam, reading from prepared scripts which quote
from the Koran (usually out of context) and describe Islam in glowing terms as a peaceful
religion which only wants to worship its God in peace and quietness.
The Koran and Hadith (authoritative Muslim commentary) describe jihad very clearly, and
their description does not jibe with what many talking heads are confidently proclaiming.
These next sections set forth Islamic teaching on jihad from the source documents, explain
how these teachings are reflected in both the Muslim view of the End of Days and in the terror
and violence of the ‘mujahidin of the apocalypse’, and suggest some prophetic possibilities
as to how this rapidly developing crisis may play out.
18
A Perspective on Islam
A. THE ARABIC WORD ‘JIHAD’
Jihad is derived from the Arabic root jhd and its primary meaning is ‘to strive’, ‘to exert
oneself’, or ‘determined effort’. One who participates in jihad is a mujahid (plural
mujahidin ). In the Koran the term jihad is usually followed by the expression fi sabil Illah
(‘in the path of Allah’) and nearly always refers to war and conquest in Allah’s name. There
are other Arabic words that refer to war, such as harb (‘to put to the sword’) or qital (‘to
slay’), but jihad is the Koran’s term of preference for holy war – conquest of non-Muslims,
their territories and possessions – in the name of Allah, as well as giving pagan survivors the
choice between death and conversion to Islam.
The Hadith , a compilation of Muhammad’s teachings written down after the completion of the
Koran and considered authoritative by Islam, is the second most important source of Islamic
law (Shari‘a ). The term jihad as used in the most authoritative hadith (Sahih al-Bukhari )
has 199 references, all of which define jihad as warfare. The world famous Orientalist scholar
Bernard Lewis states that “the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists and
traditionalists… understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense” (Bernard Lewis, The
Political Language of Islam, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988, p. 72). The
original and classical Islamic use of the term jihad in both Koran and the Hadith means
armed warfare conducted against unbelievers.
B. HOW THE UNDERSTANDING OF ‘JIHAD’ HAS EVOLVED
At first glance the issue seems to be clear: Islam’s most authoritative and original sources
teach that jihad is holy war. Why should any Muslims disagree? For example, why does the
Council on American-Islamic Relations’ web page state that “‘Jihad’ does not mean ‘holy war’
. . . It is a central and broad Islamic concept that includes struggle against evil inclinations
within oneself, struggle to improve the quality of life in society, struggle in the battlefield for
self-defense (e.g., - having a standing army for national defense), or fighting against tyranny
or oppression”? CAIR’s definitions do not reflect the classical Arabic and Koranic uses of the
term ‘jihad ’. Why are the clear facts being blurred?
The answer has to do with at least two factors. The first factor is that Islamic spin doctors
might be more concerned about present public relations than about Westerners
understanding the Koran with greater accuracy. Muslims in the West are also concerned about
anti-Islamic persecutions, and consider it better to fudge the truth for the sake of temporary
peace, than tell the truth and face massive discrimination.
The second factor deals with how Islam has fared in history. Islam has undergone political
and theological changes since its inception. At Islam’s birth, Muhammad defined jihad as holy
war, and for at least a century that is how Islam’s leaders understood the call. Islam spread
from Mecca to Mesopotamia, from Persia to the Pyrenees, from India to Israel – all through
wars of conquest. At one point in history Islam had nearly conquered the known world at the
point of a scimitar.
But eventually Islamic forces were stopped. In France Charles Martel broke the wave of
Muslim conquest at the Battle of Poitiers in 732. Alfonso VIII of Castile broke the Almohad
19
A Perspective on Islam
(Moorish) hold on Spain in the Battle of Las Navos de Tolosa in 1212, leading to the
emigration of one million Moors back to Morocco. The Byzantine kings kept up a barrier
against the Islamic onslaught from the 600’s until 1453, when their city of Constantinople was
overrun by the Turks. Three days of murder, rape and robbery were permitted to the Islamic
jihad victors. Austria and Hungary held firm against the green banner of Islam, preventing
them from battering down the very gates of Vienna in 1529 and 1566. Finally in 1683 Islam’s
throttling grasp on the nations of Europe finally began to be broken, with the defeat of the
Ottoman forces of Kara Mustafa by John III of Poland at the Battle of Vienna. Over one
thousand years of Islamic jihad conquest and rule was now beginning to be reversed.
At the dawn of Islam in the seventh century AD, when Islam’s Bedouin armies had been
sweeping across the known world and conquering at the point of the sword, Muhammad’s
teachings on jihad were not disputed by Muslims. They were incorporated into the Koran and
the Hadith , and formed a bedrock of Islamic teaching and practice. But when the Muslim
momentum of conquest began to be blunted, the theology of jihad began to metamorphose.
Temporary treaties were allowed with the enemy, in order to allow Islamic forces time to
consolidate forces and then to attack again.
This concept of truce (hudna in Arabic) is very different from a Western peace treaty, because
it assumes that the treaty will eventually be broken by Islamic forces and that fighting will
recommence at a time most favorable to Muslim armies. It is in this sense that Yasir Arafat
described the Oslo Peace Accords only as a hudna like the Peace of Hudaibiya (a ten year truce
between Muhammad and the opposing forces of Mecca, which was suddenly broken by
Muhammad two years later). According to Islam, once an area has been conquered by Islam, it
becomes waqf (sovereign Islamic property). Even when that property is reconquered by Jews,
Christians or polytheists, it is forbidden for Muslims to surrender that territory. War for its return
must be waged when the opportunity presents itself. This helps to explain part of the spiritual
dynamic lurking behind Palestinians who describe Israel as being “occupied territory”.
When Islam conquered Jewish or Christian territory, the Jews and Christians inhabitants (Ahl
al-Kitab , the ‘people of the Book’) were deliberately given a legally humiliating status similar
to slavery. The Arabic word for people possessing this second class status is dhimmi . In rare
cases Jews, Christians and even pagans would be granted partial relief from dhimmi
conditions because Islam was in need of their professional services.
Islamic jurists began to develop new theological terms. At first the world was to be divided
into two sectors – Dar al-Islam (the zone or abode of Islam, where Islamic law is rigorously
carried out) and Dar al-Harb (the zone of the sword/warfare, where unbelievers lived who
needed to be either conquered and converted or slain). This view of the world implied that
perpetual warfare would exist between Muslims and non-Muslims, until Islam would absorb
or conquer Dar al-Harb . Other jurists would later suggest a third possibility (after Islamic
military advances were stalled and cease-fire treaties were signed) – Dar al-Sulh (the zone
of peace treaty) or Dar al-Ahd (the zone of covenant). Non-stop war would not have to be
immediately waged. Temporary truces afforded Muslim governments time to re-arm and then
renew jihad at a later and more auspicious date.
20
A Perspective on Islam
As corruption began to predominate in many Islamic leaders, and as succession wars and
murderous rivalries began to characterize Muslim rulers, a new wave of zealous Islamic
preachers and teachers arose. These called for the overthrow of all Islamic leaders who were
comfortable with the status quo standoff, or who had abandoned jihad in favor of
accommodation with pagans or Christians.
These new Islamic firebrands declared that Muslim leaders who failed to enforce Shari‘a
(Muslim religious law) rigorously had forfeited the right to rule. This rigorous interpretation
included the necessity of jihad . Led by the teachings of Ibn Taymiya (1268-1328), they now
broadened the definition of jihad to include the overthrow of established Islamic governments
who had abandoned Muhammad’s original zeal for conquest. They also declared that
professing Muslims who do not live strictly according to the Shari’a are unbelievers, and that
jihad must be waged against them as well. Other Muslim groups who came to the same
conclusions included the Kharijis/Khawarij in the 600’s and the Assassins/Hashishin in the
1000’s AD.
Finally another major evolutionary development in the definition of jihad came through the
Sufi movement. Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (1059-1111) taught that there is a
distinction between lesser jihad (al-jihad al-asghar ) and greater jihad (al-jihad alakbar ). What was now called ‘lesser jihad ’ still meant holy war and it still involved the
conquest of pagans, Jews and Christians at the point of the sword. But now the term ‘greater
jihad ’ would be understood to refer to personal struggle against inner evil. Al-Ghazali
envisioned the body as a city governed by the human soul yet also under attack by evil
desires. A purported tradition which is hotly disputed in Islam and not found in the Koran
or the more authoritative hadiths, describes how Muhammad supposedly came back from
a jihad battle and declared, “We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad .”
When asked, “What is the greater jihad ?” he replied, “It is the struggle against oneself” (see
Al-Ghazali, Ihya’, Al-`Iraqi . from Bayhaqi’s quote of Jabir who said, “There is weakness in
its chain of transmission”; according to Nisa’i in al-Kuna , the saying comes from Ibrahim
ibn Ablah).
Many Muslims have been influenced by this Sufi form of Islam, and think of jihad more as a
personal struggle against evil, rather than as holy war for the sake of Allah. Yet al-Ghazali’s
teaching provoked charges of heresy from Ibn Taymiya and his follower Ibn al-Qayyim alJawziya (1292-1350), who declared that al-Ghazali’s hadith quoted above was a deliberate
fabrication and a violation of Muhammad’s teachings on jihad in the Koran.
Today modern Muslims have various definitions of jihad that they can choose from. Some use
the term jihad in good faith to mean totally non-violent behavior. Many others, especially in
the Middle East and Asia, understand jihad to be armed conflict. It is important to point out
that an honest examination of classical Islam forces one to conclude: Muhammad taught and
practiced jihad as holy war; that is how Islam’s first leaders and theologians understood the
term; that is exactly how Islamic terrorists define their own actions. Other more esoteric
Muslim understandings of jihad do not erase the fact that ‘armed conquest and conversion
or murder of unbelievers’ is Islam’s original understanding of the term.
21
A Perspective on Islam
C. THE RETURN TO C LASSICAL JIHAD
A significant and growing group of Islamic activists (including Bin Laden) considers those
who champion the peaceful ‘greater jihad ’ to be anti-Islamic, cowardly, accommodationist
and heretical. Their understanding is that jihad as armed attack is the heart and cornerstone
of Islam, and that Islam’s weakened status in the world is due to the abandoning of jihad by
apostate Islamic leaders and teachers. These pro-jihad Islamic activists include the assassins
of Egypt’s President Anwar al-Sadat.
Sadat’s assassins were followers of the blind Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman (now a prisoner in a
US penitentiary) and his Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Jama’at al-Jihad al-Islami ) group. The
assassination was defended in an Islamic pamphlet (written by Muhammad Abd al-Salaam Faraj)
titled “The Neglected Obligation” (al-Farida al-Gha’ibah ). Faraj called for the assassination of
Muslim leaders who will not engage in jihad , and promised Muslims that Islam’s victorious jihad
conquest of the world is inevitable (see Johannes Jansen, The Neglected Duty: The Creed of
Sadat’s Assassins and Islamic Resurgence in the Middle East (New York: Macmillan,
1986)). Faraj was later put to death by Egypt.
Another modern and influential prophet of jihad was the Shi’ite Muslim Ayatollah Ruhullah
Khomeini (1903-1989). He called for jihad as armed actions, stating that “by means of jihad
. . . (Islamic jurists) must expose and overthrow tyrannical rulers and rouse the people so the
universal movement of all alert Muslims can establish Islamic government in the place of
tyrannical regimes”. When Islamic teachers truly communicate these points, this will cause
“the entire population to become mujahidin ” (Ruhullah Khomeini, Islamic Government,
Text in Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations of Imam Khomeini, trans.
& annotated Hamid Algar; Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1981, p. 108, 132). His teachings led the
nation of Iran to overthrow the Shah and turn 180 degrees against America. This sudden
radical ‘Islamization’ of Iran caught the US by surprise and totally disrupted American foreign
policy in the Middle East. Khomeini’s present influence on modern radical Islam is very strong.
Sixteen years after Iran embraced Khomeni’s vision of jihad , some in the US intelligence
community had not yet read the writing on the wall. In 1995 “Ambassador Philip Wilcox,
coordinator of the Office of Counter-Terrorism of the U.S. Department of State, declared:
‘There is no link between Islam and violence and terrorism. That is a canard which we
want to dismiss at the outset. Nor is there a worldwide Islamic network somehow waging
jihad against the West. This is a concept that’s brooded about sometimes, and there is
virtually no intelligence information to suggest that such a network exists’” (article by
Paul Findlay, Republican - Illinois; Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March
1995, p. 20).
Paul Findlay is on record as an advocate of Arab and Islamic causes (he was called “Yasser
Arafat’s favorite congressman” by Jon Margolis, national political correspondent for the
Chicago Tribune). That is his democratic right. What is of concern is that agents of US
counter-terrorism could have been so off-base in their appraisals. Could this lack of clear
thinking perhaps reflect in some way how the American intelligence community was so illprepared for the events of September 11 2001?
22
A Perspective on Islam
Most Americans are now convinced that a worldwide Islamic terror network exists. But the cost
of unbelief has been high. With the future in mind, consider Osama Bin Laden’s predictions on
May 28 1998 in these selected quotes from John Miller’s interview with him on ABC News:
We look at ourselves and our brethren as worshipers of Allah who created us to worship
him and follow his books and prophets. I am one of Allah’s worshipers. I worship Allah,
which includes carrying out the jihad to raise Allah’s word and evict the Americans from
all Muslim land . . . We are sure of Allah’s victory and our victory against the Americans
and the Jews as promised by the prophet peace be up on him . . . Our battle with the
Americans is larger than our battle with the Russians . . . We predict a black day for
America and the end of the United States as ‘United’ States . . . (The USA) will retreat from
our land and collect the bodies of its sons back to America. Allah willing . . . any
government that sells its people’s interests and betrays its people and takes actions that
removes it from the Muslim nation will not succeed. We predict that the Riyadh (ed.,
Saudi) leader and those with him . . . will disintegrate. They have left the Muslim nation.
We predict that like the Iran Royal family, the Shah, they will disperse and disappear . . .
The Muslim masses are moving towards liberating the Muslim worlds. Allah willing, we
will win . . . A great meeting took a place a few days ago in Pakistan, and it was attended
by 150 scholars in Pakistan . . . great joint fatwas were passed . . . the International
Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders was formed, which we are a
member of with other groups. It has a higher council to coordinate rousing the Muslim
nation to carry out jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders. . . The American
Government is driving America to destruction … so, we tell the Americans as a people .
. . if they value their lives and those of their children, find a nationalistic government that
will look after their interests and not the interest of the Jews. The continuation of the
tyranny will bring the fighting to America… We would like to stress that we are in close
contact with Muslim masses, praise be to Allah. The issue of liberating Holy Lands is not
my personal desire, but I am just a worshiper of Allah and one of Allah’s soldiers in the
Muslim nation. The movement is driving fast and light(ly) forward. And I am sure of our
victory with Allah’s help against America and the Jews.
On July 21, 2001, a nine-minute long edited tape was passed on to Reuters Television by a
Kuwaiti television station. The tape was made by Osama Bin-Laden and contained an
announcement which would soon be acted on with chilling results: “To all the mujahidin :
your brothers in Palestine are waiting for you, it’s time to penetrate America and Israel and
hit them where it hurts most”. Fifty two days later, pilots trained by Bin Laden’s al-Qa‘ida
organization began to crash their hijacked planes into America.
The Western world (specifically the United States) and Israel are being actively targeted by
Koran-quoting modern jihad warriors. Amazingly, at the same time some defenders of Islam
try to protest that these mujahidin are not real Muslims, since (they insist) Islam does not
believe in compulsion in religion (Surah 2:256). As firemen still dig through the ruins of the
WTC looking for bodies, many Americans are confused and not a little exasperated by the
mixed signals they are getting from a divided world Islamic community, one which seems to
be speaking out of two sides of its mouth about what jihad really is.
23
A Perspective on Islam
One thing is pretty clear. It is obvious to all that for these terrorists, jihad is not primarily selfimprovement or an internal struggle against evil desires. As the ABC News quote
demonstrates, these mujahidin back up their violent and murderous behavior with accurate
quotes from the Koran and the words of Muhammad. Only the willfully blind can ignore the
fact that at this moment in history some Muslims really are a threat to the West, and that
some of Muhammad’s teachings really are a threat to all non-Muslims.
Islamic mujahidin would strongly disagree with the remarks which President George Bush
made on September 17 2001 at the Islamic Center of Washington, when he said, “These acts
of violence against innocents violate the fundamental tenets of the Islamic faith. And it’s
important for my fellow Americans to understand that (ed. point) . . . The face of terror is not
the true faith of Islam. That’s not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. These terrorists don’t
represent peace. They represent evil and war. When we think of Islam we think of a faith that
brings comfort to a billion people around the world. . .”. The mujahidin ’s response would
simply be, “Of course we represent war! Jihad for the sake of Allah is war, but we also
understand holy war to be a fundamental tenet of the Islamic faith, of normative Islam,
Muhammad’s Islam, the Koran’s Islam!”
It is said that one should not try to be more Catholic than the Pope. And far be it from nonMuslims to advocate one stream of Islam over another. These debates over which form of
Islam is ‘kosher’ really should be internal Islamic debates. Nevertheless, it needs to be
stressed repeatedly that modern Islamic terrorism is not a distortion or a gross perversion of
classical Islam. The unappetizing truth is that modern Islamic jihad terrorism is the ‘flesh and
blood’ child of Muhammad’s own jihad teachings and practices.
D. THE KORAN AND H ADITH ON JIHAD
It is now time to consider the Koran’s and the Hadith’ s teaching about jihad . This may help
in understanding the spiritual guidelines that radical Islamic terrorists are following as they
plan war against America, Israel and the Western world. The contextual use of the term jihad
in all of the following passages is ‘armed conflict’ and ‘religious war of conquest’.
THE HIGHEST CALLING
According to the Hadith (al-Bukhari 1:25), the highest calling a Muslim can engage in is armed
jihad : “Muhammad once was asked: ‘What is the best deed for the Muslim next to believing in
Allah and his messenger?’ His answer was: ‘To participate in jihad in Allah’s cause’”.
EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW
Muhammad taught that jihad warfare is the sacred duty of all Muslims. Islam must strive and
fight until the nations are forced to bow every knee to Allah. “I have been ordered to fight with
the people till they say, ‘None has the right to be worshipped but Allah’” (al-Bukhari 4:196).
This teaching is an Islamic counterfeit of Isaiah 45:23 and Philippians 2:10-11, where
YHVH/Yeshua says that every knee shall bow to Him and every tongue confess that He is Lord.
The difference between Isaiah’s declaration and Muhammad’s call to jihad is striking.
According to Isaiah, at the Final Judgment all mankind will stand before the God of the Bible
24
A Perspective on Islam
and acknowledge His sovereignty. But Muhammad’s Allah is not content to wait; he commands
his followers ‘in the now’ to crush and kill all who refuse to acknowledge Allah’s supremacy.
The totalitarian nature of Islam is clear – its mandate is to conquer the entire world and force
it at the point of the sword to submit to the ‘one true faith’, to the dictatorship of Allah.
AGAINST JEWS, CHRISTIANS AND POLYTHEISTS
Armed jihad conflict is to be directed against Jews and Christians (‘the people of the
Book’) and polytheists. “Fight them and Allah will punish them by your hands, cover them
with shame” (Surah 9:14). “Wage war on those who don’t believe in Allah or the Last
Day… who… refuse to acknowledge the true religion (Islam ), (even if they are ) the
people of the Book, until they pay the jizya (poll-tax) without reservation and are totally
subjugated. The Jews claim that Uzair (Ezra? ) is a son of Allah, and the Christians say,
‘The Messiah is the son of Allah’. Those are their claims which do indeed resemble
the sayings of the unbelievers of old. May Allah destroy them! How they are deluded!”
(Surah 9:29,30).
How would modern atheists and agnostics be defined in this Islamic scenario? It should
be remembered that in Muhammad’s day, there were no large groups of atheists or
agnostics. In classical Islam’s eyes, atheism would simply be another modern heretical
form of not believing in Allah and his prophet – and therefor not immune from the
attention of the jihad .
ORDER OF JIHAD BATTLE
What did Muhammad tell his followers to do when jihad battle begins? “When you meet the
unbelievers (in battle ), strike off their heads; then when you have made wide slaughter among
them, carefully tie up the remaining captives. Afterwards either set them free as a favor or let
them ransom (themselves ) until the war terminates. Thus (you are commanded ). but if it has
been Allah’s will he could certainly have exacted retribution from them (himself ). But (he lets
you fi ght) in order to test you by means of others; and (as for Muslim fi ghters) those who are
slain in the cause of Allah, he will by no means allow their deeds to perish” (Surah 47:4).
DEATH AND TAXES
These above passages describe the components of jihad : military defeat of the enemy
combined with deliberate slaughter of the opponent; enslavement or ransom if the victorious
leader so desires; a fealty bond (jizya or poll-tax) paid by Jews or Christians, indicating their
acceptance of and agreement to a humiliating near-slave status (dhimmi ); death by the sword
for those who refuse to accept Islam or pay the jizya (see The Dictionary of Islam, Thomas
Patrick Hughes, W.H. Allen, London 1885, reprinted 1935 and 1965, p. 243).
This last condition also applies to Christians and Jews. “The Jews were allowed to stay at
Khaibar on condition that they would pay half the produce of their lands to the holy Prophet
in addition to the jizya ” (Mishkat 2:455; later on the Jews of Khaibar were slaughtered). “If
they (the enemy ) refuse to accept Islam, demand from them the jizya . If they agree to pay,
accept it from them and hold off your hands. If they refuse to pay the tax, seek Allah’s help
and fight them” (Sahih Muslim , 4294).
25
A Perspective on Islam
OPEN SEASON
The following two stories show the treatment of Arab polytheists at the hand of Muhammad’s
jihad soldiers. “Ayas b. Salamah reported on the authority of his father: ‘The apostle of Allah
(may peace be upon him) appointed Abu Bakr to be our commander and we fought with
some people who were polytheists, and we attacked them at night, killing them. Our war-cry
that night was “Kill, kill!” Salamah said: “I killed that night with my hand polytheists belonging
to seven houses” (Sunan Abu Dawud, Kitab al-Jihad 2632). “The messenger of Allah
(Muhammad ) made a raid upon Banu Mustaliq while they were unaware and their cattle
were having a drink at the water. He killed those who fought and imprisoned the others”
(Sahih Muslim 4292). These jihad stories are a respected part of Islam’s religious tradition.
Polytheists who accept Islam can be spared, but if they return to polytheism, they are to be
destroyed. “Say to the unbelievers (ed. polytheists ): If they desist from their unbelief, what is
now past shall be forgiven them; but if they return to it, they have already before them the
doom of the ancients! Fight then against them until there is no strife and the religion is entirely
Allah’s… ” (Surah 8:39-42). Since Christians who believe in the Trinity are considered
polytheists by Islam, they are also potentially fair game, and can be destroyed if battle is
joined: “But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and kill those who join other gods
with Allah wherever you may find them; capture and besiege them and lie in wait for them
with every stratagem (of war )” (Surah 9:5; cf. 2:217).
TERROR AND JIHAD
Jihad not only involves warfare and subjugation. Terror is considered a necessary
psychological weapon to intimidate and crush all opposition. Allah says, “I will instill terror
into the hearts of the unbelievers. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every one of
their fingertips . . . O you who believe! when you meet those who disbelieve marching for war,
then turn not your backs to them. And whoever shall turn his back to them on that day –
unless he turn aside for the sake of fighting or withdraws to a company – then he, indeed,
becomes deserving of Allah’s wrath, and his abode is hell; and an evil destination shall it be.
It is not you who slew them; it was Allah who slew them, and you did not smite when you
smote (the enemy ), but it was Allah who smote, and that he might confer upon the believers
a good gift from himself . . . Strike terror (into the hearts of ) the enemies of Allah and your
enemies” (Surah 8:12, 15-17, 60). These words of Allah are the spiritual catalyst which led
to the actions of the Black Tuesday terrorists.
JIHAD – A HARSH AND MERCILESS CALLING
Muhammad taught his followers that jihad warriors need to carry out their attacks with
ferocious cruelty. “O you who believe! Fight the unbelievers in your surroundings, and let
them find harshness in you and know that Allah is with those who guard (against evil )”
(Surah 9:123). Mujahidin (jihad warriors) are to be known for their lack of mercy in battle:
“Those who follow Muhammad are merciless to the unbelievers but kind to each other”
(Surah 48:29).
Those who ride forth under the banner of jihad are not to show chivalry or love to the enemy,
before his defeat or after. Rather than Yeshua’s commandment to love one’s enemy, Allah
26
A Perspective on Islam
commands Muslims to hate their enemies: “O you who believe! Do not take my enemy and
your enemy for friends: would you offer them love while they deny what has come to you of
the truth, driving out the apostle and yourselves because you believe in Allah your lord? If you
go forth struggling hard (doing jihad ) in my path and seeking my pleasure, would you
manifest love to them? And I know what you conceal and what you manifest; and whoever of
you does this, he indeed has gone astray from the straight path” (Surah 60:1)
Why are Muslims commanded to terrorize and slaughter their opponents? Part of the Koranic
reason is because Allah hates those who will not accept or believe Muhammad’s message.
Whereas the New Testament says that “God is not willing that any should perish, but that all
may come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9), Allah has lost patience with non-Muslims and has
consigned them to hellfire. “The Jews and Christians who disbelieve (ed. in Allah ) and the
polytheists will burn forever in the fire of hell. They are the worst of men” (Surah 98:6).
These above teachings are messages of hate. Their spiritual author is Allah. Their physical
spokesman was Muhammad.
THE ARMY OF ALLAH
Muslims are told not to accept offers of friendship from Jews and Christians, since the latter
are probably trying to get them to reject Islam. Offers of friendship should be met with a jihad
response. “They desire that you should disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so that you might
be (all) alike; therefore take not from among them friends until they flee (their homes ) in
Allah’s cause; but if they turn back, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and
take not from among them a friend or a helper” (Surah 4:89).
Since the Koran sees mujahidin as the army of Allah, those who reject the Koran are to be
considered an anti-Islamic demonic army under the control of Shaitan (Satan and his
demons). The Koranic response to unbelievers is one dimensional – engage in jihad and
destroy the infidels! “Those who believe fight in the cause of Allah (do jihad ), and those who
disbelieve fight in the cause of the Shaitan . Fight therefore against the friends of the Shaitan ;
surely the strategy of the Shaitan is weak” (Surah 4:76).
Jihad is not an optional choice for Muslims; it is a commandment. Later generations of
Muslims would argue about whether jihad is a group or individual responsibility, but the
Koran makes it clear: “Fighting is prescribed for you, though it be hateful to you” (Surah
2:216). “And strive hard (do jihad ) in the cause of Allah, a striving that is due to him; he has
chosen you and has not laid upon you a hardship in religion – (but he has given you ) the
faith of your father Ibrahim (ed., Abraham ) . . .” (Surah 22:78).
MARTYRDOM AND SUICIDE
The Koran’s perspective is that all Muslims are slaves of Allah. Everything they are and all that
they have belongs to him, including their lives. And Allah grants jihad warriors paradise upon
martyrdom. “Truly Allah has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties; for
theirs (in return ) is Paradise. They fight in his cause, so they kill (others) and are killed …
(al-Bukhari 51:1). “So narrated Al-Mughira bin Shu’ba, ‘Our prophet told us about the
message of Allah that “… whoever amongst us is killed will go to Paradise” (al-Bukhari 51:2).
27
A Perspective on Islam
The focus on martyrdom through jihad sounds strange to Western ears. Yet the suicide
bombers of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Bin Laden have drawn the world’s attention to this basic
Islamic truth. Martyrdom in combat is to be greatly desired, according to Muhammad. “So
narrated Anas bin Malik, “The prophet said, “Nobody who dies and finds good from Allah
…would wish to come back to this world even if he were given the whole world and whatever
is in it – except the martyr who, on seeing the superiority of martyrdom, would like to come
back to the world and get killed again” (al-Bukhari 51:6).
According to the Koran, to avoid the physical dangers of jihad is cowardice and a dishonor
to all Muslims. It is liable to lead to damnation for the shirkers of jihad . “If you do not fight,
he will punish you severely, and put others in your place” (Surah 9:39; see also 8:15-17).
“Say to those of the dwellers of the desert who were left behind: ‘You shall soon be invited (to
fight) against a people possessing mighty prowess; you will fight against them until they
submit; then if you obey, Allah will grant you a good reward; and if you turn back as you
turned back before, he will punish you with a painful punishment’” (Surah 48:16).
It seems that some Muslims were slow to join in the jihad journeys, and Muhammad rebukes
them quite forcefully: “O you who believe! What (excuse ) have you that, when it is said to you:
‘Go forth in Allah’s way ( in jihad )!’, you should incline heavily to earth (ed. stay at home )?
Are you contented with this world’s life instead of the hereafter? But the provision of this
world’s life compared with the hereafter is but little. If you do not go forth, he will chastise
you with a painful chastisement and bring in your place a people other than you, and you will
do him no harm; and Allah has power over all things” (Surah 9:38-39).
Jihad is to continue until the sway of Islam is over all the earth and all mankind bows before
Muhammad. The first region for Muslims to conquer through jihad was Arabia. After that,
they were commanded to conquer the rest of the world for Allah: “Make war on them until
idolatry does not exist any longer and Allah’s religion reigns universally” (Surah 8:39).
THE REWARDS OF JIHAD
Jihad has its own rewards. “Let those who barter the life of this world for that which is to
come, fight in the cause of Allah (do jihad ); for whoever fights on Allah’s path, whether he is
killed or triumphs, we will give him a handsome reward” (Surah 4:74). That reward amounts
to 80% of the booty of war, which includes women and children.
“And know that whatever thing you gain, a fifth of it is for Allah and for the apostle and for
the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the wayfarer – if you believe in Allah and
in that which we revealed to our servant ( Muhammad ), on the day of distinction, the day on
which the two parties met; and Allah has power over all things” (Surah 8:41). “Abu Hurairah
reported that the messenger of Allah said, ‘To whichever village you go and settle therein,
there is your share therein, and whichever village disobeys Allah and his messenger, its onefifth is for Allah and his messenger, and the remainder is for you’” (Mishkat 2:412).
“Samurah bin Jundub reported the apostle of Allah (may peace be upon him) as saying,
‘Kill the old men who are polytheists, but spare their children’” (Sunan Abu Dawud, Kitab
al-Jihad 2664).
28
A Perspective on Islam
The Hadith teaches: “After the Battle of Badr, the verse dealing with the booties was first
revealed. The verse introduced the rule for the first time that the spoils of war would be the
property of the soldiers who actually take part in the battle. Previously it went either to the
coffers of the victorious king or commander even though he did not join in the actual fight.
That is one of the reasons why the soldiers of Islam fought tooth and nail. They would get
Paradise in case of death in holy war, and booties in case of conquest. Jihad is therefore the
best source of all acquisitions” ( Mishkat II:406).
Jihad privileges extended to raping women captives. “In the actual war-field in the midst of
hostilities, according to some jurists, some concessions were sometimes given to soldiers for
recreation. Captive virgin girls in war were once made lawful for the soldiers for copulation”
(Mishkat II:440). “Abdullah (b.Masud) reported, ‘We were on an expedition with Allah’s
messenger (may peace be upon him) and we had no women with us … (Muhammad ) …
then granted us permission that we should contract temporary marriage for a stipulated
period giving her a garment, and Abdullah then recited this verse, “Those who believe do not
make unlawful the good things which Allah has made lawful for you, and do not transgress.
Allah does not like transgressors” ( Sahih Muslim, II:705).
Another Islamic teaching promises paradise pleasures for the jihad warrior who dies in
battle. Seventy perpetual virgin houris (dark-eyed beautiful young women) who don’t sweat
or complain await him, and will be always available for the inexhaustible mujahid . “In
Paradise (al-Jannat ) there are palaces made of pearl, in each palace are seventy abodes
made of rubies, in each abode there are seventy houses of green emerald. In every house is
a couch, on every couch are seventy beds of every color, on every bed a spouse from the
houris … In each house there are seventy slave-girls, and every morning when he is anxious
for food the Muslim is given all that he desires besides. And verily … their beauty shall be as
that of the moon on the night when it is full …Their vessels and their combs shall be of gold
and silver, and their perspiration of musk … And verily every man among the people of
Paradise shall surely wed 500 houris and 4,000 virgins (Sahih al-Bukhari; Mishkat alMasabih under the title “Descriptions of the Garden”; see also Mizan al-Haqq ). These are
the visions which pass in front of the eyes of Islamic mujahidin – whether they be World
Trade Center hijackers, Iranian Shi’ite teenagers running across Iraqi minefields, or Hamas
suicide bombers striding into crowds of Jewish shoppers in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Netanya.
KORANIC SELF- CONTRADICTIONS
The Koranic evidence for jihad as an Islamic campaign of war and conquest is overwhelming.
Yet when this material is presented, some Islamic advocates will react by presenting
statements (also from the Koran, and only a handful at that) which seem to endorse religious
freedom. This creates a certain amount of difficulty for Westerners who want clear answers
as to what Islamic jihad really is.
These inconsistencies exist because the Koran itself often has contradictory or ambivalent
teachings on a subject. For instance, at one point in Muhammad’s career he was content to
accept a form of polytheism (Surah 53:19-20 – the ‘Satanic verses’), to grant toleration to
non-believers (Surah 2:256), and to bow toward Jerusalem (Surah 2:142-145; see also The
29
A Perspective on Islam
Dictionary of Islam, ibid ., p. 520 which quotes from Jalalu’d-Din Al Suyouti’s Al-Itqan fi
Ulum al-Quran: “After his flight he ordered his followers to turn [in prayer] to the bayt al
Makdas [the Temple] in Jerusalem. This, however, which was done to conciliate the Jews,
held good for six or seven months only, and then he changed it again”). These more tolerant
statements can be found in the Koran and Hadith – next to statements which order his
followers to slaughter Jews and Christians.
What happened is simply this: at an earlier stage in his career Muhammad was more tolerant in
an effort to win a wider following for his new revelations. Over time, as his message was rejected
first by Jews and then by Christians, he decided to narrow his target audience and his message.
Soon new revelations backed up the narrower emphasis. Muhammad’s decrees moved away
from limited toleration and towards greater stringency. The prophet of Islam ultimately would
preach and lead murderously violent jihad actions wherever he went. In that sense, the vast
majority of classical Islamic teachings recorded in the Koran and Hadith is Muhammad at his
harshest (see al-Bukhari 4:34-199 for grim details of Islamic jihad activities).
Some Islamic spokesmen declare that Islam forbids the slaughter of innocents and therefore,
any mujahid who kills innocents does not represent Islam. Let’s examine the source of that
Islamic teaching in context. At one point in his career Muhammad decreed that in jihad ,
women and children are to spared, while their Christian, Jewish or polytheistic husbands,
brother and fathers are to be slaughtered: “It is narrated by Ibn Umar that a woman was found
killed in one of these battles; so the messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) forbade the
killing of women and children” (Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Jihad wa’l-Siyar , 19:4320). That
concession, by the way, is not a proof of Islamic tolerance. Muhammad was advocating
violence and murder on religious grounds, acts which included the mass slaughter of all
males and the raping of the women.
At the same time, it is only fair to recall another respected Islamic tradition – one in which
Muhammad permits the slaughter of innocents. “So narrated as-Sa’b bin Jaththama, ‘The
prophet passed by me at a place called al-Abwa or Waddan, and was asked whether it was
permissible to attack the pagan warriors at night with the probability of exposing their women
and children to danger. The prophet replied, “They are from them” (ed. Muhammad is
saying that the women and children are also pagans like their husbands/fathers, so it is
permissible to kill them) . This quote is from Bukhari, Sahih vol. 4, transl. M.M. Khan,
New Delhi 1984, pp.158-59 (also Sahih Muslim, Kitab al-Jihad wa’l-Siyar 19:4323).
The two traditions quoted above are respected by Islamic jurists. Yet it is clear that these two
traditions are contradictory. Muhammad at one point said that it was fine to murder men but
not women and children. Later on, he said that is was acceptable to murder all three. It is
simply not honest to stand up on Western television screens and pretend that jihad is only
another word for moral self-improvement, when the above-quoted texts clearly call for world
conquest and mass murder.
Lately there have been many Islamic spinmeisters who try to present jihad as non-violent and
humanitarian. This, by the way, is not a new phenomenon. Here is an ancient example: “Thus
30
A Perspective on Islam
jihad in Islam is not an act of violence directed indiscriminately against the non-Muslims; it
is … not an act of mad brutality. It has its material and moral functions, i.e. self-preservation
and the preservation of the moral order in the world” (Sahih Muslim 3:938) “… (T)he
sword has not been used recklessly by the Muslims; it has been wielded purely with humane
feelings in the wider interest of humanity” (ibid ., p. 941). In light of the many Koranic
verses quoted in this article describing the true nature of jihad, one is struck with a sense
of unreality after reading these last two quotes from Sahih Muslim . Are we observing
selective memory, spiritual blindness, or simply an inability to perceive the truth? Whatever
the cause, the end result of such spin is that the viewer receives a distorted picture of Islam.
E. FUTURE JIHAD
Islam sees its future in the light of its past. In order to understand the mujahidin vision for the
future, we must consider a few brief aspects of Islamic history. My appreciation to David Cook
whose thought provoking article ‘Islam and Apocalyptic’, has influenced my own thoughts in
this section. Mr. Cook’s article is available through the website of Center for Millennial Studies
at Boston University at the following site:
www.mille.org/people/Cook.Abs.html
Starting 1,400 years ago, Islam attempted to conquer the entire world, and nearly succeeded.
For over 1,000 years it held sway as the world’s strongest empire. But at present, Islam has
waned in power and dwindled in influence. The world powers (defined as ‘Christian’ powers
by the Muslim world) of Britain, France, USA and Russia have either directly dominated or
influenced large areas of the Middle East over the past three centuries. According to
traditional Islamic perspective, not only Western military influence, but also their political
influence (democratic government), their cultural sway (Hollywood and Western secular
values), and their religious influence (freedom of religion, and missionary outreach) – all
have brought pollution to strict believers in Islam and jihad . Many Muslims feel that their
world has been conquered by the values of the West, and that this has caused millions of
Muslims to slack in their commitment to Islam.
But it’s not only Western Christians who are seen to be the enemies of once glorious Islam.
The resurgent Jewish nation is also a source of humiliation for many Muslims. The State of
Israel is seen by most Muslims as a hated spearhead of Western forces and values in the
Middle East. Time and again the little Jewish state has defeated superior numbers of Islamic
forces. Many Muslims believe that this shaming of Muhammad’s army can only be reversed by
the total elimination of the State of Israel.
The present disgraceful and defeated condition of Islam cannot be due to any fault of Allah.
It must be due to the disobedience – the lack of religious purity and zeal – of the Islamic
world. According to this perspective, Allah is now giving individual Muslims the chance to
redeem themselves through a renewed commitment to Islam and to jihad (Muhammad’s
burning command to conquer the world for Allah immediately prior to the final Hour of
Judgment). This time, it is believed, Islam’s triumph will be decisive and eternal.
The above perspective can be called ‘Islamic revivalism’. It sees the present world condition
as paralleling the world situation in Muhammad’s day (600’s AD). The mujahidin see
31
A Perspective on Islam
themselves as re-enacting the original battle between the world of Islam and the world of the
infidels (Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb ). According to Islamic revivalism many of the world’s
Islamic leaders are also infidels – rich petroleum sheiks content to sin and slumber while the
West drains Islamic oil wells (a strategic military gift given by Allah to Muslims to put the West
in an economic and political stranglehold).
The Islamic calendar, according to modern Islamic revivalism, raises Muslim expectations
that the Final Hour is here. This calendar takes its starting point (called the hijri ) with
Muhammad’s escape from Mecca on July 16, 622 AD. Recently, in 1979 AD Islam’s 14th
century came to a close. This ‘turn of the century’ event became ripe with jihad symbolism,
for two apocalyptic events occurred in quick succession in that year – Khomeini’s Islamic
Revolution in Iran, and the short-lived but violent takeover of Saudi Arabia’s central mosque
containing the Ka’ba (Masjid al-Haram ) in November 1979 by mujahidin . For Islamic
revivalists, the writing was on the wall: the Hour of Judgment is nearly here, and jihad is now
the order of the day.
Some Muslim revivalists consider that Islam’s Last and Finest Hour might have started with the
Arab-Israeli wars, or perhaps with the Gulf War. Muslim eschatology (end-times scenarios)
describes the rise of an ‘antichrist’ figure called the ‘dajjal ’, a Jew who will lead a world
conspiracy against Islam, spearheaded by the Christian West and by Israel. Since it is
unthinkable for Muslims that Islam would lose out to Christianity in the Final Hour, true
Muslims must resist the dajjal’s influence by opposing and destroying all Western, Christian
and Jewish influences on Islamic society – be they political, cultural or religious. The name
of one of Bin Laden’s umbrella groups, the International Islamic Front for the Jihad Against
Jews and Crusaders , takes on added meaning within this eschatological (last days) context.
Islamic revivalist writings decree that Allah will bring natural disasters and terror acts against
the West as punishment for Christianity’s “corruption” of Islam. When these acts of Allah’s
vengeance against the West occur, they say, Muslims should be overjoyed. In this context,
consider the spontaneous outbursts of joy and city-wide victory marches in Lebanon and the
Palestinian areas, when news of the Black Tuesday terror attacks became known.
Islamic futurists believe that war will first be joined against the Jews in Israel and then, after
Israel’s defeat, against the West. The reason Israel has succeeded for so long, it is believed, is
because the dajjal is exercising his demonic powers through Israel and the United States to
weaken and divide the Islamic world. The worldwide spread of American culture, music, films
etc., reflects a dajjal agenda to destroy Islam. From this perspective, one could nearly say that
the rock star Madonna, the fast food giant McDonald’s, and the seven-branched Jewish
menorah (candelabrum) are all elements of the dajjal ’s satanic agenda.
It is noteworthy that, during the first and second intifada s (violent Palestinian riots against
Israelis), bloodthirsty graffiti were scrawled and street chants resounded, drawing
connections between jihad against the Jews and jihad against the Christians: “First we come
for the Saturday people (the Jews) and then for the Sunday people (the Christians )!” These
mob chants reflect Palestinian awareness of a jihad consciousness and a jihad eschatology.
32
A Perspective on Islam
One Islamic strategy influenced by the above eschatology, is the attempt to drive a wedge
between the Christian West and the Jewish state of Israel. The principle of ‘divide and
conquer’ is older than Machiavelli, and is part of the world strategy of Islamic terror. Islamic
revivalists and terrorists are trying to weaken and destroy Israel as a first step. This will lead,
in their minds, to weakening and destroying the West. One of the main messages that Islamic
terrorism and its fellow travelers continue to drive home to America and the West is this, “The
main reason for terror attacks against the US is your support for Israel. End support for Israel,
and we will end attacks on you!” In this regard, it is worth meditating on the results of the
October 2001 NEWSWEEK poll which found that 58% of Americans surveyed believe that
recent Islamic terror is due to American support for Israel.
Another pause for thought comes from Osama Bin Laden’s latest video message aired on Qatar’s
al-Jazeera television station on October 7 2001. “As for the United States, I say only a few words
to it and its people: I swear by Allah who elevated the skies without pillars, that neither America
nor he who lives in it will enjoy security before we can see it as a reality in Palestine – and not
before all the infidel armies leave the land of Muhammad, may peace be upon him”.
Bin Laden’s aide Suleiman Abu Ghaith (a spokesman for the al-Qa‘ida group) added,
“America has announced its total support for the Zionist entity that has killed and oppressed
Muslims and Arabs, and this is its stupid policy … America has to know that was happened
to it is a result of this policy and it must know that if it continues this policy, then the sons of
Islam will not in any way stop waging revenge … The American people must know that it
bears total responsibility and what has happened to it is because of its support for this policy”.
IV. IS THE WEST PREPARED FOR JIHAD?
Many in the West find it nearly impossible to come to terms with the very openly declared
agenda of Islamic jihad revivalism. The possibility of another threat to world order (of similar
nature to fascism or communism) brings fear and horror to many Westerners. “Just when we
made the world safe from Communism, now this? Anthrax-laced letters in the U.S. Mail, and
nuclear backpacks in US cities?” Many in the West don’t want to live with such crises, and they
hope that if they strenuously ignore these crises, the dangers will disappear.
History is full of examples of national leaders who have played the ostrich when faced with
international emergencies. Prime Minister Chamberlain of Great Britain refused to believe
that Hitler could be a threat to Western European democracies. Communists in Western
Europe and North America refused to believe any thing bad about Uncle Joseph Stalin. Many
Israelis until recently believed that Yasir Arafat had changed his spots and was now a peace
partner in good faith.
Yet the ostrich response is widespread. At the same time as Allied troops are fighting
the Taliban and al-Qa‘ida in Afghanistan, great pains are being taken by Western ‘Christian’
leaders to proclaim that Islam has nothing to do with Islamic terrorists, and even (in
the recent words of Prime Minister Tony Blair) to deny that Islamic terrorists even
exist. Why is it that the West does not want to acknowledge the religious identity of its selfdeclared enemies?
33
A Perspective on Islam
One reason may be that the West does not want to buy into apocalyptic scenarios. Who wants
to accept that ‘life as we know it’ may never be the same again? Many Westerners consider
peace and comfort as the main values in life. Anything that disturbs those activities should be
ignored, and then maybe it will go away. But Paul’s caution in 1 Thessalonians 5:3-6 is opposite:
he warns that those who desire peace and safety above all things will confront sudden
destruction. We who desire God’s protection should be sober and on the lookout, Paul says.
A second reason is that many in the West are naive when it comes to recognizing implacable
enemies – foes who want to murder, conquer and convert at the point of the sword. That
scenario sounds too ‘kitsch’ for most Westerners. Most believe that everyone ‘has his price’,
and that enemies can be bought off with increased offers of humanitarian or military aid.
Often the foreign policy of the West has been strikingly similar to the words of Rodney King,
“Can’t we all just get along?” Or perhaps the words of John Lennon offer quicksilver hope,
whether it be “Love is all you need” or “Imagine … nothing to kill or die for … imagine all
the people living life in peace”. One heritage of the Woodstock Nation is its naive inability to
recognize existential threats.
A third reason concerns those in America and Europe who are isolationist, who believe in
looking out for “Fortress America/Europe and let the rest of the world be darned”. There are
those who would willingly throw Israel to the Islamic wolves if it means an uninterrupted flow
of oil for the eighteen wheelers of American or European industry.
At the same time it should be noted that prophetic voices calling attention to upcoming jihad
have been raised in the past decade. Steve Emerson produced a television broadcast in 1995
(available in video) called ‘Jihad! in America’, (SAE Productions Inc, Alexandria, VA)
detailing how the developing international Islamic terror network has been making inroads
in America. For the most part his work was ignored (except by Arab political action groups).
Israeli then-Prime-Ministerial contender Benjamin Netanyahu published Fighting Terror
(Farrar, Straus, Giroux, NY, 1995), a little heeded appeal to the West (until Black Tuesday) to
defeat terrorism before the fast closing window of opportunity would close – the moment
when Islamic terrorists deploy atomic, chemical or biological weapons.
The fourth and last reason that some leaders in the West refuse to publicly acknowledge the
existence of Islamic terror, is due to a misguided political strategy. The West wants to
eradicate Islamic terror networks, but at the same time it wants to avoid angering the very
volatile Muslim world. The trick is to find a balance between keeping the oil flowing westward
and removing the the most bothersome terrorist dangers. This explains the many recent
American and British declarations which emphasize that the Afghanistan war is not antiIslamic, but anti-terror. The Western coalition feels that it makes better political sense to
ignore the Islamic and terrorist nature of jihad , describing the Islamic faith as altogether
peaceful, than to expose the violent Islamic nature of jihad and lose many testy and touchy
Muslim allies – and their oil.
The West wants to strengthen the hand of pro-Western Islamic elements in the Muslim world
while simultaneously weakening and neutralizing anti-Western jihad forces. That is why
34
A Perspective on Islam
Western ‘Christian’ leaders keep insisting that Islam is purely a religion of peace, and that
Islamic jihad warriors like Bin Laden are not a valid expression of Islam.
The moral problem with this strategy is twofold. First, it confuses and blurs the spiritual
discernment of the Western public. It lulls them to sleep regarding the clear and present
danger presented by Islamic jihad . This will make it harder to rally the West when Islamic
jihad really kicks into high gear. Secondly, it plays into the hands of the Islamic jihad
movement itself, whose sleepers have infiltrated North America and Europe. Many of these
sleepers continue to operate under the cover of Islamic institutions and charities – some
which are bona fide, others which are bogus fronts which raise funds for terror and
orchestrate terror campaigns. To win the war on terrorism, it is absolutely necessary to
understand the nature of one’s enemy and his strategy. To confuse one’s own forces about the
enemy’s strategy is to risk losing the war.
Unless the West is willing to be ruthlessly honest in calling terror ‘terror’, in comprehensively
uncovering terror networks in Western countries, in not turning a blind eye to Islamic terror
nests in host countries like Syria (recently voted in as non-permanent UN Security Council
member), Iran, Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and in not adopting a double
standard when it comes to anti-Jewish/anti-Israeli terror (by justifying, working with or quietly
rewarding anti-Israel terrorist movements) – then the best that can be expected from
Operation Unending Freedom in Afghanistan is the lopping off of a few heads from the manyheaded Islamic terrorist hydra. But make no mistake – the terrorist hydra will grow new heads,
and these heads will grow back even more quickly. And these new terrorists will be even more
passionately committed to carrying out an even harsher jihad against the ‘infidel’ West.
V. PROPHETIC POSSIBILITIES
The following is a considered opinion about what may well happen in the near future. These
thoughts are not inerrant, but are worth considering as events unfold.
It seems that the Islamic terror movement, in conjunction with Muslim states which support
an Islamic jihad agenda, will try to escalate terror attacks against the West, inflicting civilian
casualties at a rate like nothing which has ever been seen before. This would include the use
of atomic, biological and chemical warfare against American cities. Many reliable prophetic
voices have been quietly saying these things for years.
Natural disasters in the West (from massive flooding to earthquakes and comets) will be
understood by Islam’s followers to show that Allah himself is smiting the West and fighting his
own form of jihad against the ‘infidels’.
Years ago, an internationally trusted prophetic voice prophesied that Communism would one
day be revived and return to the world scene as a power to be reckoned with. This
Communism will be ‘raised from the dead’ to join together with Islam, having the common
goal of world conquest. Islam will be the stronger of these two powers, and their union will
have terribly evil consequences for the entire world. It seems that these struggles will lead to
the rise of the real anti-Messiah.
35
A Perspective on Islam
In the meantime, Islam will continue to push its short term goal of getting America to abandon
Israel. Terrorism against Western targets, a renewed anti-Israel Arab boycott – but especially
a determined Arab oil embargo – will be its major tools. The plumb line which God will use
to divide the hearts of all the nations will be Israel. Those who stand with her in her hour of
need will be blessed and accepted by the God of Israel, while those who abandon her and
choose all other gods will be thrust out from God’s presence forever (Matt.25:31-46; see also
Heb.2:16-17).
So it is no longer business as usual. The masks are off. Pray that many in the West and in Israel
will recognize the strategies of Satan as seen in the Islamic revivalist jihad movement. There
is a window of opportunity open right now in the West as a result of the September 11 terror
attacks – a willingness to weigh and consider the potential destructiveness of Islamic jihad ,
and its potential threat to Western civilization.
VI. HOW SHALL WE THEN RESPOND?
Here are three areas of prayer and response to focus on:
1. ISLAM
• pray for, love and witness boldly to your Muslim friends
• learn more about Islamic culture, history, Arabic music, food
• pray for the release of the Holy Spirit revelation concerning Yeshua to Arab and Islamic
leaders and peoples
2. ISRAEL
• pray for the peace and protection of the Jewish people, the state of Israel, and their
capital city Jerusalem (Psa. 122:6)
• pray for the revelation of Messiah Yeshua to the Jewish people
• share your faith in Yeshua boldly with Jewish people
• be ready to open your hearts and homes to Jewish people as they begin to face
worldwide persecution
3. YOUR OWN HOMELAND
• love your country
• pray for your leaders’ wisdom, discernment, protection, peace
• pray for protection, repentance, revival
• pray that your country will stand by Israel and bless her
• share your faith and life boldly
36
A Perspective on Islam
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Avner Boskey was born and raised in Montreal Canada. He studied at Hebrew University,
Jerusalem and McGill University, Montreal (B.A. in Jewish Studies) and at Dallas Theological
Seminary (Th.M.).
Avner and his wife Rachel have been involved in Israeli evangelism, congregation planting,
Bible teaching, worship and pastoral counseling. He has served on the Theological
Commission of the United Christian Council in Israel, on the National Evangelism Committee
in Israel, and from 1986-93 as associate editor of MISHKAN: a theological journal on Jewish
evangelism published in Jerusalem. The Boskeys are blessed with four sons.
Avner and Rachel oversee Final Frontier Ministries , a ministry dedicated to stirring up
worship, intercession, evangelism, and the prophetic within a Jewish and Israeli matrix. Avner
is the author of the book ‘Israel the Key to World Revival’ and ‘A Perspective on Islam’.
Avner and Rachel have released three CDs – ‘Old and New’ (1993), ‘Ancient Gates” and
‘LaKatzir’ (Hebrew for ‘For The Harvest’) (both 2001) through David’s Tent Music . These
materials are available through:
FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES
BOX 121971
NASHVILLE TN 37212-1971 USA
[email protected]
w w w. d a v i d s t e n t . o r g
37
© Avner Boskey 2001.
FINAL FRONTIER MINISTRIES
Box 121971, Nashville TN USA 37212-1971
Text on the front cover within the green circle is the Hebrew for,
“There is no God but YHVH!”
(based on the Book of Exodus chapter 20, verses 2-3; the Book of Hosea chapter 13, verse 4;
the Book of Daniel chapter 3, verse 29)
Cover Design and Book Text Typeset by meduzanak design, Tel Aviv, Israel
[email protected]